TheRPGSite

This is the anti-post to my other one, wherein I ask the question which game has been criminally over-rated.
 
I would include in this list a sub-genre of games which are still-born, and should never have escaped the game designer's brain and committed to paper...

At the risk of being obvious, 3rd edition D&D and D20 in general. Especially D20 in general. Not that it's bad, just criminally over-rated and over-used.

Define over rated for me.

Exalted: horrible, overly-complex system that is badly broken (even according to the game's fans) hitched to a mish-mash, convoluted setting that utterly fails to interest me at all.

And yet, there are people who love this game with the burning heat of a thousand suns.

D20 would be my first choice as well, as I don't think I can name another RPG that was over-rated on quite that scale (to the point it dominated the market for half of the oughts).

RIFTS in the 90s. Maybe just Palladium in general.

Nobilis and Smallville if we're including RPGnet Darlings.

FATE 3rd Edition. There's plenty of fans who act like FATE is the be-all, end-all of gaming these days.

Fading Suns (And I like this game). It's one of those games where what you read about it, is far more interesting than the game itself.

Regards,
David R

D20 has taken more abuse than any other system.  How can it be over rated?

Most of the systems trying too hard for realism wind up boring yet still miss the mark of realism.  Yet their fans claim superiority through greater detail.  This includes Role Master, Gurps, Hero, etc.

It's really too easy to point to Sorcerer, DitV, Burning Wheel Revised, or TRoS. All of them games with rabid fandoms, who claim the game will work for everything if you'll just give it a chance (particularly the first three). When, in fact, they're highly problematic in one way or another.

However, those games really have pretty narrow followings and relatively limited publication histories.

The game that mystifies me is Paranoia. I heard of it when it came out and it seemed like a pretty funny idea. Loved reading & hearing stories of how it worked. Then I finally bought some materials used, looked them over, and realized I had no desire to play the game, let alone play multiple scenarios. It strikes me as a game that was made for certain point in time, basically as a one-shot high-concept gag, and now that I get the joke, there's no need to keep going. I wonder how much use the game actually gets over time, even as an in-between filler.

Quote from: Nicephorus;488655D20 has taken more abuse than any other system.  How can it be over rated?

You perception may be coloured by online opinions, which in no way reflect the industry as a whole. For the better part of a decade, D20 was the be-all. end-all of gaming for the majority of the hobby, and Pathfinder's continued success even after the system was "retired" has led to it providing the first real competition for D&D since WoTC bought it out.

The sheer glut of D20 products that flooded the market alone should give an indication to how over-rated this system was, if not the asinine belief held by far too many that the system was in some way a generic or universal engine that can handle any genre (it can't, the system is just cleaned-up AD&D with some bells & whistles, nothing more).

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;488657The game that mystifies me is Paranoia. I heard of it when it came out and it seemed like a pretty funny idea. Loved reading & hearing stories of how it worked. Then I finally bought some materials used, looked them over, and realized I had no desire to play the game, let alone play multiple scenarios. It strikes me as a game that was made for certain point in time, basically as a one-shot high-concept gag, and now that I get the joke, there's no need to keep going. I wonder how much use the game actually gets over time, even as an in-between filler.

Been playing it for 30 years, never had a problem. But then, I don't play "zap!" games, so there's no "joke" to get. Calling it over-rated is a bit odd, though, since most players have never heard of it, and there is no hype surrounding the game these days. Not in a long, long time.

Any time you forget this is a game you are probaly overrating it.

I agree about Paranoia. I mean the rulebook is pure genius. It is really funny and rich of ideas and it deserves it's place in roleplaying game history if for no other reason that it is most quotable game of all.

That said, in actual play, it doesn't make for quality roleplaying. And that's a problem because it just adds to the perception that comedy games are basically second class games - good for goofing around but not suited to immersive or long-term play.

By contrast Ghostbusters (also an oldie from WEG) is the kind of comedy game in which you can have proper characters with plots which are just as plausible as those of any other roleplaying game (I know, that's not saying much) simply with less blood and more embarassment.  But still when people thing of comedy games Paranoia or Toon seem to be the ones that come up first.

There's a reason why HC Paranoia players look down on "Zap!"-style players.

I get the feeling over-rated here means games I don't like as opposed to "I don't get what all the hype was about"

True20 is pretty over-rated.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Serious Paul;488642Define over rated for me.

Seconded.

No one's going to pick this because it doesn't have a big following here, but the King of Over-rated games is D&D 4e.  Most RPG.net darlings are over-rated, but I'd say Exalted, Savage Worlds, and FATE are almost so overrated as to be a cliche.

D&D 3e.  It does what it does, but it's not a particularly good system.  Dark Heresy and Exalted.  Both really cool settings with really bad systems.

Mutants & Masterminds in general, but especially 3E/DCA.  Beautiful layout, amazing art, rabid fanbase, and the second you take more than a cursory look at the system, you notice that it doesn't actually work for superheroes at all.

I'm going to say World of Darkness. The level of fanaticism was (is?) astounding. Especially if you add in the LARPing aspects.

Quote from: David R;488677I get the feeling over-rated here means games I don't like as opposed to "I don't get what all the hype was about"

True20 is pretty over-rated.

Regards,
David R

What did you seriously expect, David? :O

-clash

Quote from: misterguignol;488643Exalted: horrible, overly-complex system that is badly broken (even according to the game's fans) hitched to a mish-mash, convoluted setting that utterly fails to interest me at all.

And yet, there are people who love this game with the burning heat of a thousand suns.

Agreed, 100%. I mean, the errata was massive and that should be telling to even somebody with no experience with the game. The setting...at least until they messed with it more than they needed to...was great. We've converted it to Strands of Fate because as has been mentioned, the system is so utterly horrible that it kills the goodness lurking in the setting.

Quote from: Serious Paul;488642Define over rated for me.

Wow, you don't even have the balls to do that for yourself?



Games I think are over-rated:

Exalted. Way too complicated.

nWoD. Sure, WW cleaned up the rules, but in the process, they removed all the fun.

Various Old School Renaissance games. Yes, I like them. No, D&D 1e/2e/B/X were not the greatest games ever made that can never be improved upon.

Quote from: danbuter;488695Wow, you don't even have the balls to do that for yourself?

Well at least I know you're a rude prick now.

Only when I deal with people who can't even make such a basic definition apply to themselves. Seriously, just list games you think are over-rated. It's not very hard.

Ah screw it. Why have an internet dick waving contest with some random douche bag.

Quote from: David R;488652Fading Suns (And I like this game). It's one of those games where what you read about it, is far more interesting than the game itself.

Regards,
David R

A friend bought Fading Suns and we made characters, but I don't think we ever actually tried to play. The setting seemed cool, but... yeah. What you said.

Most over-rated game to me now is 3/3.5/Pathfinder.

Can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a group of fanboys. I just don't get the appeal.

Back in the day though, 2nd edition was over-rated, at least to me and where I lived. It was hard to get 2nd edition people to even try other games. Once again, this was just my experience where I grew up.

Maybe I should just come out and say "Dungeons and Dragons is the most over-rated game."

I already regret writing that.

Quote from: Serious Paul;488705Ah screw it. Why have an internet dick waving contest with some random douche bag.

It's a good source of calcium.

I'll go with 4e as well... for having so many players who won't play anything else, despite there being so many better things to play.
Follow that up with D&D in general.

Quote from: daniel_ream;488682Mutants & Masterminds in general, but especially 3E/DCA.  Beautiful layout, amazing art, rabid fanbase, and the second you take more than a cursory look at the system, you notice that it doesn't actually work for superheroes at all.

Hmm?

FATE.  Wushu.

And I think I agree with Daniel about M&M, actually.

Quote from: VectorSigma;488722Wushu.

Oh man, Wushu is a great pick.  I hardly think it actually qualifies as a game at all, yet some people think it's the best thing ever written.

I always thought the gushing that went on about Shadowrun was incredibly misplaced.  Terrible narrative voice in the rulebooks, the mishmash of D&D+(bad) Cyberpunk* went together like peanut butter and cat litter, and the BIG FIST O' DICE resolution mechanics left a lot to be desired for what was ostensibly supposed to be a fast paced game.

...


*=there are no good RPGs that set out to be specifically Cyberpunk RPGs.  At all.  Some are just less bad than others and I say that as someone who was an insufferable Cyberpunk 2020 fan for a few years.

I don't think the thread is supposed to be "rant about your least favourite game", so I'll try to summarize: M&M 2E & 3E simply do not have mechanics for most of what happens in a superhero comic.  It's an abstract version of the d20 combat system with Champions' unbalanced and broken superpower creation system tacked on.  There isn't actually a superhero game in there, which may be why the vast majority of its fans seem to be using it for some (any) other genre.

Quote from: misterguignol;488724I hardly think [Wushu] actually qualifies as a game at all, yet some people think it's the best thing ever written.

It's an important idea ("so-called 'action' games don't reward you for action stunts, they punish you less") that should have been applied to another, complete game.

Quote from: VectorSigma;488722FATE.  Wushu.

Oh yeah... they're on the list too... though I'm guessing way fewer people have heard of Wushu.

Also, Savage Worlds... not that it's a bad system, but you'd think it's the cure for cancer the way some (a lot of) folks go on about it.

Quote from: Simlasa;488733Also, Savage Worlds... not that it's a bad system, but you'd think it's the cure for cancer the way some (a lot of) folks go on about it.

Yes.

I was ready to play a game of Twilight:2000 and had a player practically insist we use SW for the rules.

I did, and regretted it.

RE: D&D being over rated. I'm tempted to agree, but then again, I suspect that just about every iteration* of the game (even those I personally dislike) has provided more people with more hours of gaming satisfaction than just about every other (non D&D) game combined. It's hard to accept that something that has delivered so much to so many for so long could be thought of as overrated.



*I'm including PF and all the other retroclones in here because they are all D&D.

None of them are necessarily bad systems or games but yeah, all iterations/clones of (A)D&D and D20 seem pretty overrated to me as well. The same goes for Savage Worlds, Fate and WoD.

Exalted I'm not so sure about. Sure, it's quite an abomination of a game but I haven't seen it get much praise except on RPGnet.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll go ahead an say Pathfinder.  I enjoyed the hell out of 3.5 but it's still a bloated mess.  PF doesn't really address the problems of 3.5 in any real way IMO.  There are times when I think people praise it just to counterbalance what they don't like about D&D 4e.  On a very personal level my gaming group consistently talks about wanting a PF game despite the fact that our last three 3.5 games were boring, frustrating, failures.

See as I see over rated, it's not just sales but expectations. Problem is I've no idea what kind expectations the community has because frankly I've never really cared what the "RPG" community as a whole does.

So from my own perspective the game I thought would be alot better than it turned out to be would have to be Shadowrun 44, the game I'm currently playing. Supposedly they were going to address a variety of known issues-poor editing, poor indexing (Something the guys at D20 deserve credit for-they can index like demons!), and the scattering of rules through out books. The idea was that the core book really would be usable as a stand alone. Except the whole time they knew they were going to follow the formula from the first three editions-core book, gun book, magic book, vehicle book, etc... and once again the rules are spread all over the place.

I'll try to stick with games I've found to be over-rated in person, as every corner of the net has its followings.

D&D is the top one for me.  Trying to get anyone to play a different fantasy game is like pulling teeth.  I would understand if D&D was really good, but to me it's always been a rather mediocre system (I like about half of the editions, avoid the other half).

Star Wars d6 comes a close second for basically the same reason - any time I want to play a science fiction game, it's impossible to get anyone to play anything else; and I find it to be a rather mediocre system overall.

Edit: Two more I could list include Paranoia (talk about one-note) and Savage Worlds (savagely bland and gimmicky, perhaps).

Quote from: jgants;488777Star Wars d6 comes a close second for basically the same reason - any time I want to play a science fiction game, it's impossible to get anyone to play anything else; and I find it to be a rather mediocre system overall.

I ran a game of it once where we retooled it to use the D6 Legend mechanics and made a couple tweaks to the Force rules (roll lowest of the relevant Force Skills instead of all the relevant ones, plus Force skill dice add directly to relevant skills rather than there being Force Powers for detecting lies, affecting weak minds, or jumping).  Suddenly the game went ten times faster and throwing the dice was exciting instead of a math chore.

It's my favorite game/system, but I'm going to go ahead and agree with 3.x/D20. 3.x was fun, but I've got some issues with the design where small fixes would have made it so much better. And as others have said, D20 was used as if it was a generic system when it really wasn't very good for that. What made D20 into the behemoth it was had less to do with the system and more to do with the support of D&D.

But then there's what Aos said. Hard to call a game overrated that got so much use and was so much fun.

Earthdawn: made out to be a game that Finally Does Legendary Fantasy Adventures Right, it was a largely boring Shadowrun-rerun. I don't begrudge anyone for enjoying it, but it just didn't do anything really special.

Well, Dungeons & Dragons dominates the demographics so solidly it can't help be the most over rated game.  Consider game x with its thousand fans who would kill for it.  100% of its fans over rate it but they're still less than 1% of the D&D fans who over rate it.

And I don't really like D&D.  I almost could.  I really almost could but instead of embracing its miniatures battles roots they're always running away from them.  I suspect if Old Geezer's version were published I'd hate that too.

But yeah, barring that, Savage Worlds is singularly unimpressive and dull.  I want to like it so badly but their sf material is so bad that I just can't like it.

Quote from: misterguignol;488643Exalted: horrible, overly-complex system that is badly broken (even according to the game's fans) hitched to a mish-mash, convoluted setting that utterly fails to interest me at all.

And yet, there are people who love this game with the burning heat of a thousand suns.

I was actually going to suggest Exalted for most underrated given the intense vitriol it seems to create these days from most quarters. Initiallyit was a game that many people thought was good on some level.

Seems a perfect example of how popular opinion on its own can snowball over time to effect how a game is rated.

Quote from: daniel_ream;488682Mutants & Masterminds in general, but especially 3E/DCA.  Beautiful layout, amazing art, rabid fanbase, and the second you take more than a cursory look at the system, you notice that it doesn't actually work for superheroes at all.

Except for those thousands of people using it to work with superheroes on a regular basis.

I think you may want to rethink that phrase "doesn't actually work for superheroes at all".  Maybe it doesn't work well for you, but empirically it works for many people.

My vote is for Savage Worlds. Its a generic and somewhat bland system that still feels half baked despite years of development. Plus there are better alternatives out there.

However, many of its fans think it is well designed and fills a niche that no other game does.

Quote from: Melan;488804Earthdawn: made out to be a game that Finally Does Legendary Fantasy Adventures Right [...]

I'll second this.  When I played it, the first thing that struck me was "hey, they've tried to take all of the weird D&D rules artifacts and create in-universe explanations for why it works like that".  Then I played it some more, and quit when I realized that the game couldn't decide what it wanted to be - Cthulhoid Horror, Sword & Sorcery adventure, Optimistic Post-Apocalypse, Rebels vs. Empire, etc.

Quote from: Skywalker;488812My vote is for Savage Worlds. Its a generic and somewhat bland system that still feels half baked despite years of development. Plus there are better alternatives out there.

However, many of its fans think it is well designed and fills a niche that no other game does.

Good point.

Quote from: daniel_ream;488815I'll second this.  When I played it, the first thing that struck me was "hey, they've tried to take all of the weird D&D rules artifacts and create in-universe explanations for why it works like that".  Then I played it some more, and quit when I realized that the game couldn't decide what it wanted to be - Cthulhoid Horror, Sword & Sorcery adventure, Optimistic Post-Apocalypse, Rebels vs. Empire, etc.

I think those are decision you need to make yourself, the game isn't going to do it for you. Having a wide array of options in a genre as wide open as fantasy isn't really a drawback, imo. My main issue with Ed was the way the system was married to the setting. I disliked Barsiave, but I found it difficult to run a homebrew when every page of the book was screaming BARSAIVE, BARSAIVE, BARSAIVE. We liked the dice mechanics quite a bit back in the day, but now I can't imagine why. Some of the color plates inthe 1e core book were quite lovely, though.
All in all, though,  I'd rather play just 0e or 4e D&D.

Quote from: Aos;488819My main issue with Ed was the way the system was married to the setting.

That's partly what I mean - you can't ignore the campaign types you don't want to play because the gonzo kitchen sink-ness is threaded throughout the mechanics.

Quote from: everloss;488710Most over-rated game to me now is 3/3.5/Pathfinder.

Can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a group of fanboys. I just don't get the appeal.

Back in the day though, 2nd edition was over-rated, at least to me and where I lived. It was hard to get 2nd edition people to even try other games. Once again, this was just my experience where I grew up.

Maybe I should just come out and say "Dungeons and Dragons is the most over-rated game."

I already regret writing that.

Why when it's obviously the truth.   Even if you like some edition of the game I can't see anyone claiming that it is so good it should define the entire hobby, and really that is what does even for many people who consider themselves to be serious about RPGs.

Quote from: Skywalker;488812My vote is for Savage Worlds. Its a generic and somewhat bland system that still feels half baked despite years of development. Plus there are better alternatives out there.

However, many of its fans think it is well designed and fills a niche that no other game does.

Speaking as a lapsed SW fan, it does the Hollywood summer blockbuster action movie genre (a la Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay) pretty darn well, without feeling overly storygamey.

The only problem with it, I guess, is that it does this too well. I've never had a PC die in 3 years of semi-regular SW sessions (one-shots, mini-campaigns, and now the Day After Ragnarok campaign), and I sometimes get whole sessions (typically with 2-3 combats) without so much as a Wounded PC.

I'm OK with minor story-emulation mechanics like bail-your-ass points (Action Points, Fate, Bennies, whatever), but I miss combat being, you know, worth something other than show.

I haven't given up on SW entirely, but it's definitely going to the fridge right now. I'm considering converting the campaign to another system, possibly 2FT. Also OD&D, BRP and others beckon...

Quote from: The Butcher;488839Speaking as a lapsed SW fan, it does the Hollywood summer blockbuster action movie genre (a la Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay) pretty darn well, without feeling overly storygamey.

I am not saying SW is a bad game. FWIW I find it to be OK overall and highly overrated.

Quote from: danbuter;488695Wow, you don't even have the balls to do that for yourself?

Yeah, goodness knows that arriving at a commonly-understood definition facilitating communication so that we can have a productive mature discussion on a topic instead of  simply a bunch of people randomly listing games they don't like is obviously a horribly cowardly and unmanly proposition.

Quote from: daniel_ream;488829That's partly what I mean - you can't ignore the campaign types you don't want to play because the gonzo kitchen sink-ness is threaded throughout the mechanics.

I think we're talking past each other and mean something different when we say that system and setting were married.

I primarily mean they were welded together in their presentation; I'm guessing your beef is that the setting assumptions informed the way the game mechanics functioned. Both are true, but I can fool with the latter, the former I'm stuck with because of the way the book is put together with its art and setting detail on every page.  All hyperbole aside, hardly a page goes by in the ED 1e book  without an illustration that is captioned in such a way as to tie it back to the house setting. It's hard to ignore and interferes with the apparatus of my imagination.

There was a time when I would have gladly played  a game in my own setting using the ED mechanics- if those mechanics were presented separately from the setting, like they are in virtually every iteration of D&D. As for ignoring the "gonzo kitchen sinkness" of it all, if I wanted to do that I'd use something else (which, incidentally, I would do anyway, at this late date regardless of whether or not I wanted the kitchen sink).

Quote from: Skywalker;488842I am not saying SW is a bad game. FWIW I find it to be OK overall and highly overrated.

I know, and I'm sorry if that's what I seemed to say.

It's just that I used to be one of the proverbial enthusiastic (if hardly "rabid") SW fans, and I've been looking for a chance to share my "postmortem" impressions.

Quote from: The Butcher;488850I know, and I'm sorry if that's what I seemed to say.

It's just that I used to be one of the proverbial enthusiastic (if hardly "rabid") SW fans, and I've been looking for a chance to share my "postmortem" impressions.

That's cool. I think we agree and have had similar experiences. FWIW Solomon Kane remains high on my "to run" list :(

Quote from: Skywalker;488859...Solomon Kane remains high on my "to run" list :(

I've got this one too, and I'd also love to run it some time.

Quote from: Skywalker;488859That's cool. I think we agree and have had similar experiences. FWIW Solomon Kane remains high on my "to run" list :(

SK is a great book, and it's what actually got me started with SW.

I'd have to agree with the person who said True20; Blue Rose's True20 was a great system, but they "fixed" it in the wrong ways in True20, and took all the spirit out of it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;488982I'd have to agree with the person who said True20; Blue Rose's True20 was a great system, but they "fixed" it in the wrong ways in True20, and took all the spirit out of it.

I agree. Though there are elements of True20 that I thought Blue Rose's version was improved by (I prefer True20's approach to Toughness and Armour), a lot of the other changes (like to magic, skills etc) did little other than make the system bland.

Quote from: Tetsubo;488683I'm going to say World of Darkness. The level of fanaticism was (is?) astounding. Especially if you add in the LARPing aspects.

I hold that WoD LARP fandom is almost entirely seperate from trad tabletop gaming. Usually, when I go to a WoD LARP, none of the players have gaming experience outside of WoD LARPing.

Quote from: Skywalker;488809I was actually going to suggest Exalted for most underrated given the intense vitriol it seems to create these days from most quarters. Initiallyit was a game that many people thought was good on some level.

Seems a perfect example of how popular opinion on its own can snowball over time to effect how a game is rated.

The system's crap. I mean, look at the errata. it's like a whole game! People don't hate on Exalted because it's popular, they hate on it because its system is utter garbage.

As far as FATE goes, I agree that it's got some undue love, at least until Strands of Fate. People drooled over Spirit of the Century, but it gave me a headache trying to read it. At least SoF is digestible and easily used for different settings. Maybe that's why it works; because it's a toolkit as opposed to a setting that uses FATE.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;489052The system's crap. I mean, look at the errata. it's like a whole game! People don't hate on Exalted because it's popular, they hate on it because its system is utter garbage.

I don't think the mere quantity of errata is necessarily an accurate judge of system quality when considerable amounts of it is rewrites (and of disputed quality itself). It would be like saying that an RPG is crap just because it has a second edition.

Quote from: Skywalker;489055I don't think the mere quantity of errata is necessarily an accurate judge of system quality when considerable amounts of it is rewrites (and of disputed quality itself). It would be like saying that an RPG is crap just because it has a second edition.

Sure, but if the second edition is due to the first edition's system being a pile of failure...it kinda does point toward system quality!  And if the second edition is equally (if not more) broken as the first...

Quote from: misterguignol;489060Sure, but if the second edition is due to the first edition's system being a pile of failure...it kinda does point toward system quality!  And if the second edition is equally (if not more) broken as the first...

Sure. I understand Exalted's problems well enough.

I just don't think a page count of the Exalted's "errata" is an accurate measure of the quality of the system. Much of that "errata" is a rewrite of old material by a group of people who simply have a different take on or disagree with the original material. Much of it is not really fixing anything IMO.

I have seen plenty of bad systems with no errata and plenty of good systems with pages of errata. I am sure we all have.

Savage Worlds is a game that gets played a lot in the US East coast gameday circuit; its a passable game, but I think there are so many better game. Getting stunned as a default form of damage is a drag, spending your "awesome" points to get rid of it and act is a drag, and it rewards players for disruptive play with its flaw system.

If speaking of things that get more love than they perhaps deserve at TBP, I'd cite D6 Star Wars, Strands of Fate, and D&D 4e.

One of White Wolf's issues is historically, as a design house, they refuse to spend resources on actual playtesting and design.  While I dearly love White Wolf settings, their mechanics and game play are mediocre at best.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;489002I hold that WoD LARP fandom is almost entirely seperate from trad tabletop gaming. Usually, when I go to a WoD LARP, none of the players have gaming experience outside of WoD LARPing.

I always had the impression too that those were largely separate fanbases.

Quote from: D-503;489228I always had the impression too that those were largely separate fanbases.

I know people who do both, but it's like having two distinct hobbies, rather than an expansion of RPing.

Riddle of Steel.  Not based on sales but based on the hype surrounding the game when it came out and sometime afterwords.  Yeah it has some cool ideas and does a few things right.  But in no way does it do what it claims to do and is so easily broken that the whole experience system requires a huge level of caveat.

Savage Worlds, it's bland, it's generic, it has never really felt like it fit into any genre we've tried to use it for.  It's kinda like D&D in that regard.  Savage Worlds makes any setting just feel like Savage Worlds.  The same way that regardless of what setting you throw at D&D it just feels like D&D.

BESM/Tri-Stat.  What a complete mess.

Riddle of Steel is a good choice for over-rated. I've rarely been so disappointed in a game, and I consider it almost unplayable if you do RAW.

I think Nobilis and Exalted aren't very good.

I think Nobilis gets my vote as seeming to be the most talked about/talked up game vs. how many people actually owned or played it... famous for being famous. I've seen it come up in conversations where it turns out no one talking about it had ever seen it.

Quote from: kryyst;489232Savage Worlds, it's bland, it's generic, it has never really felt like it fit into any genre we've tried to use it for.  It's kinda like D&D in that regard.  Savage Worlds makes any setting just feel like Savage Worlds.  The same way that regardless of what setting you throw at D&D it just feels like D&D.

To be fair this is true of any game.  GURPS, Hero, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, they have their own flavor that may or may not compliment the setting.

Quote from: D-503;489228I always had the impression too that those were largely separate fanbases.

I'll respectfully disagree, but freely admit that my LARP groups may not be representative.

I see the thread has become "over-rated on RPG.net's forums" as opposed to over-rated among hobbyists.

99% of roleplayers I've met have never heard of Nobilis or Riddle of Steel.

I suspect you've dropped some decimal places.

Quote from: David Johansen;489277I suspect you've dropped some decimal places.

I've met one person IRL who'd heard of Riddle of Steel (including every FLGS worker I've ever conversed with), and I've met 2 people who had heard of (but never seen let alone played) Nobilis, and both of them heard of it on RPG.net.

Quote from: TristramEvans;489289Nope. I've met one person IRL who'd heard of Riddle of Steel (including every FLGS worker I've ever conversed with), and I've met 2 people who had heard of (but never seen let alone played) Nobilis, and both of them heard of it on RPG.net.

I think he meant you were right, and dropping decimal places meant it's really 99.999999999%

Quote from: CRKrueger;489296I think he meant you were right, and dropping decimal places meant it's really 99.999999999%

oh. my math-fu is not strong.

Your math-fu corresponds with mine; I have met one person IRL who had heard of TRoS (and is the only reason I've ever heard of it); I have actually seen a copy of Nobilis 2nd ed in the wild, but I didn't know what it was at the time.  It was at a small RPG store in a university town that seemed to only carry small press and indie games.  It went out of business three months after it opened.

Seeing as we play it, all the people in my group have heard of Nobilis :p

Maybe I'm hanging out with bad people... Nobilis was a topic amongst folks I know here a while back. I'd be surprised it was all generated by RPG.net... but maybe.

Quote from: TristramEvans;48927699% of roleplayers I've met have never heard of Nobilis or Riddle of Steel.

My main disappointment with TRoS is that I sold it before it became really valuable. But yeah, it kind of sucked except for people with very specifics tastes.

Nobilis is very popular around here though. In fact, there was a Nobilis LARP held in town just last night.

Quote from: Skywalker;489316My main disappointment with TRoS is that I sold it before it became really valuable. But yeah, it kind of sucked except for people with very specifics tastes.
.

TRoS broke my heart...and I too sold it all to soon...:o

After 30 odd sessions I think Pathfinder is overated.
:)

GURPS. I simply can't understand why this game has a fanbase. Character generation is an exercise in tedious point accountancy and min-maxing. Characters who take stupid disads to buff their characters can force the game into silliness. (If you /want/ to play a character with OCD, fine. But when the game gives you points for doing so, it just encourages a party of weirdos with bizarre quirks.)

The settings are bland, the sourcebooks dull, and most of them are stuffed full of various packages and options,most of which are completely pointless. GURPS: Martial Arts, for example, has dozens of special moves, but no clear rationale for why you would use them in preference to your best attack.

Burning Wheel and Savage Worlds come to mind where the hype doesn't synch up with merit.

But getting lots of hype by a vocal (and possibly small) fanbase and being generally (and erroneously) well regarded are two different things.

Which games don't deserve the high regard they receive by the general gaming populace?

Clear answer to me is Pathfinder RPG. The worst design 'fix' I've ever seen in the entire history of RPGs, but a stunning commercial success to boot.

Similarly, apart from a few isolated on here, you'll have a hard time finding people online (and esp. offline) who are willing to concede that the 40k RPG rulesets are terribly designed and deserve a quick death.

Quote from: Windjammer;489331Clear answer to me is Pathfinder RPG. The worst design 'fix' I've ever seen in the entire history of RPGs, but a stunning commercial success to boot.

I think we have a winner.

Quote from: Windjammer;489331Clear answer to me is Pathfinder RPG. The worst design 'fix' I've ever seen in the entire history of RPGs, but a stunning commercial success to boot.

Isn't Pathfinder just the last hold out of the D20 system fad?

Quote from: Windjammer;489331Clear answer to me is Pathfinder RPG. The worst design 'fix' I've ever seen in the entire history of RPGs, but a stunning commercial success to boot.

Pathfinder's supposed to be a rules fix? :eek:

Quote from: Lawbag;488638This is the anti-post to my other one, wherein I ask the question which game has been criminally over-rated.
 
I would include in this list a sub-genre of games which are still-born, and should never have escaped the game designer's brain and committed to paper...

Call of Cthulhu.

Back off poindexter, it isn't per se a bad game, but...


"you have been summoned to the mansion of Great Uncle Fester to learn his dark secret..."

Quote from: David R;488677I get the feeling over-rated here means games I don't like as opposed to "I don't get what all the hype was about"

True20 is pretty over-rated.

Regards,
David R

This I don't get, because IMO True20 is the cleanest and best version of d20 I've seen. I get calling d20 itself over-hyped, even though I actually like many d20 games, but I would almost exempt True20 due to it's more streamlined implementation of the d20 engine. I even adapted Dark Sun stuff to it and enjoyed it more than I ever enjoyed DS with 2e or 3e D&D.

Quote from: Aos;488864I've got this one too, and I'd also love to run it some time.

I've always wanted to play in 50 Fathoms.

Quote from: TristramEvans;489435Isn't Pathfinder just the last hold out of the D20 system fad?

That's how I'd characterize it as well. My vote, despite enjoying the hell out of it for years, would be D20 in general. I'm very doubtful I'd ever run it again, even my True20 version. Now that I have rediscovered RQ and BRP, and have obtained good quality clones of older D&D, I think my D20 days are over. I'm happy that Paizo have achieved success with PF, but I can't see myself wanting to play it unless the rest of any group I were in insisted. It's decent (as are many D20 incarnations), but it's not the end all be all of game systems that D20 system games in general were hyped as being. Unless I'm playing older D&D clones (which IME run faster and have faster chargen) for the old school dungeon crawl / hex crawl experience, I'm not much interested in any class / level games anymore.

Quote from: Windjammer;489331...
Clear answer to me is Pathfinder RPG. The worst design 'fix' I've ever seen in the entire history of RPGs, but a stunning commercial success to boot.
...

Out of curiosity, as someone who hasn't played a d20 game in five years, what does Pathfinder purport to 'fix' in 3.5?

In retrospect, the hype over d20, and especially D&D 3e, in the early 0's looks pretty insane to me today.

Quote from: Akrasia;489562Out of curiosity, as someone who hasn't played a d20 game in five years, what does Pathfinder purport to 'fix' in 3.5?

Isn't that why Windjammer put the would fix in invert commas and called it worst? It seems he agrees with you.

Quote from: Skywalker;489579Isn't that why Windjammer put the would fix in invert commas and called it worst? It seems he agrees with you.

Is it really worth my time answering this question?

For me, two things it fixed is combat maneuvers and skill ranks, as well as some less pivotal things like shapechanging mechanics.

If you are the sort of person who hates the 3.5e approach in its entirety (like a few hatahs in this thread), chances are the pat answer is going to be "it didn't fix anything".

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;489580Is it really worth my time answering this question?

FWIW I am not expressing an opinion either way. Just noting that Windjammer seemed to be agreeing with those that were asking him what PF fixed.

Pretty much exactly.

The short answer to Akrasia: google Pathfinder, Trollman, kick a man when he's down, and some other threads on TheGaming Den. There's also the documentation when Trollman & Co. got removed from open playtesting because they were using mathematical modelling to show that the actual design didn't deliver the intended results. The reason given wasn't only or so much that he had used non-nice language (though he had) but that mathematical modelling wasn't what Paizo wanted from the public playtest. You read that right.

The slightly longer answer, restricting myself to the two things CaesarSlaad mentioned.

Pathfinder copied 4E's way of rolling Jump & co. into Athletics, and Listen & co. into Perception. That was a fix. Not a terribly original one, but (what little) honor where honor is due. Pathfinder of course also tries to be original, and that's where the hilarity starts. Like, to stay on topic, introducing a Fly skill. Yes, that's exactly what D&D needs.

CaesarSlaad mentioned Combat Maneuvers. These'd be my main beef. I can't rule out that these things got fixed in errata v. 1.03416, so please forgive if I judge the game on its release state.
I agree that resolving combat maneuvers in 3.5. could be a session stopper for players if they were unfamiliar with them (hint: players who use them repeatedly grow familiar with them in no time). But the thing was, for characters these things worked - they could pull them off, with fair chances of success.

Voia la, Pathfinder comes along and reverses the trend. I guess they must have cheered at that ridiculous 4E promotion video ('grappling is inane'). So PF cut out one intervening step in the resolution mechanism - in 4E we'd have said, 'streamlined the mechanics' to 'strip out' the 'unfun' bits.

Unfortunately, in the process PF also borked the success chance of combat maneuvers because someone came up with the glorious idea to
a) kick up the target number one rolls against by adding an extra stat modifier (Dex PLUS Str), this skewering the 3.5 odds of succeeding at these things considerably; and
b) introduce some great feats for casters to nullify the use of said maneuvers on them.

When pressed for an explanation of these design choices, James Jacobs said (and is on record for saying) that things like bull rushing and charging are so over the top things that PCs (meaning, those who attempt them) should only pull them off successfully very few times per session, and only against clearly inferior foes. So it wasn't even a bug, it was a feature now.

Before you let that fully sink in, one more thing. The context of that remark was a discussion about level 12 characters, when casters pull off world shaking stuff. But heaven forfend if our lvl 12 barbarian can successfully charge a monster at that level.  

So between introducing fixes no one wanted and rationalizing changes by the most bizarre reasoning ever, Pathfinder's alleged 'fixes' are the creatures of designers who frankly couldn't play second fiddle when WotC was busily designing 3.5.

God, I love Golarion and most of Paizo's adventure modules, if not always for content then for their inspiring artwork. But claiming that PFRPG is superior to 3.5 is in my book a dead reliable indicator that someone can't tell wheat from chaff in game design.

Edit. Why am I even typing these long posts? It's not 2009 anymore, and we all know where we stand on these issues. Ok, Akrasia wasn't around or didn't care at the time, but the rest? I guess Aos must be thanking me on his bare knees for these pontifications.

Quote from: Windjammer;489618The slightly longer answer:

Pathfinder copied 4E's way of rolling Jump & co. into Athletics, and Listen & co. into Perception.

Nevermind that other d20 games (Spycraft, True20, frex) did it first, but actually they didn't.

They rolled Jump and Tumbling into acrobatics. Pathfinder doesn't have an athletics skill, though if they were looking for good mechanics to copy, folding Climb and Swim into Athletics as Spycraft does would have been a winner.

QuoteLike, to stay on topic, introducing a Fly skill. Yes, that's exactly what D&D needs.

I used to not care to much for fly.

After playing with it, I consider it no worse than climb or swim, and in an environment where you need to randomize success of ariel maneuvers, it's the way to go in the 3e type skill-resolution environment.

QuoteCaesarSlaad mentioned Combat Maneuvers. These'd be my main beef. I can't rule out that these things got fixed in errata v. 1.03416, so please forgive if I judge the game on its release state. Combat maneuvers were borked because someone came up with the glorious idea to
a) kick up the target number one rolls against by adding an extra stat modifier (Dex PLUS Str), this skewering the 3.5 odds of succeeding at these things considerably; and
b) introduce some great feats for casters to nullify the use of said maneuvers on them.
When pressed for an explanation of these design choices, James Jacobs said (and is on record for saying) that things like bull rushing and charging are so over the top things that PCs (meaning, those who attempt them) should only pull them off successfully very few times per session. So it wasn't even a bug, it was a feature now.

Well, all I gotta say here is our group just made 10th level, and based on actual play (and with no errata I am aware of), things are ticking along fine. Not only are unusual maneuvers less complicated in play and opened up variety in combat accordingly, but it has significantly reduced the "AoO paranoia lock" by people actually taking one on the chin just to pull a necessary maneuver off.

As for rarely pulling it off... well, what's good for the goose, y'know. Our witch, master debuffer, nearly neutralized one combatant entirely by an unlikely feeblemind. Considering that this tactic uses up one of his highest level spells, why should the fighter get unfettered access to an ability that is as much of a gamechanger?

I really have to wonder how much actual play your frothing hate comes from, or if you are yet another one of those hatahs out there always fault-finding and never really giving the games they hate a chance.

Given that your supposed "mathematially derived" flaws are so at odds with my actual play experience, I am given to suspect the latter.

PF didn't fix 3.5 in any substantive way so if the perception is that it did then it's certainly overrated. Having said that while I am over the whole 3.5 thing (I'm running LoTFP and loving it) I will always have a soft spot for it for sticking it to WOTC and the abomination that is 4E.

PF just means that 3.5 is still supported. No more and no less. That is more than enough to justify it's popularity, however.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;489621I really have to wonder how much actual play your frothing hate comes from, or if you are yet another one of those hatahs out there always fault-finding and never really giving the games they hate a chance.

Given that your supposed "mathematially derived" flaws are so at odds with my actual play experience, I am given to suspect the latter.

Is this a parody or the real thing? I'm asking because this is the bland rhetoric we've seen at paizo.com over the years. Also, you might want to (re)read this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=18653&page=3) ([edit] and this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=415157&postcount=19)).

Quote from: Windjammer;489680Is this a parody or the real thing? I'm asking because this is the bland rhetoric we've seen at paizo.com over the years. Also, you might want to (re)read this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=18653&page=3) ([edit] and this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=415157&postcount=19)).

So that's it then? Conjured analyses with no correlation with actual play trump actual play and observations to the contrary are "rhetoric"? If you are looking for the source of rhetoric,  look in the mirror.

I invoke Gygax's First Law:

D&D building block are so robust, that tampering with the interaction scheme nearly never invalidates the D&D-style fun to be had.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;489685Conjured analyses with no correlation with actual play trump actual play and observations to the contrary are "rhetoric"?

"Laws of probability be damned, I have a system! This casino is gonna be mine!"

Quote from: Windjammer;489618The short answer to Akrasia: google Pathfinder, Trollman, kick a man when he's down, and some other threads on TheGaming Den. There's also the documentation when Trollman & Co. got removed from open playtesting because they were using mathematical modelling to show that the actual design didn't deliver the intended results. The reason given wasn't only or so much that he had used non-nice language (though he had) but that mathematical modelling wasn't what Paizo wanted from the public playtest. You read that right.

This doesn't surprise me. Large chunks of Trollman's mathematical analysis is spherical cow (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2434/roleplaying-games/on-the-importance-of-spherical-cows) stuff. Paizo wasn't saying, "We don't think mathematical analysis is valuable." They were saying, "We've done mathematical analysis. We're interested in seeing what happens in actual play."

They might have been able to do this more diplomatically, but they were specifically trying to avoid the type of fatally-flawed "theory first" playtesting that plagued 4th Edition.

QuotePathfinder copied 4E's way of rolling Jump & co. into Athletics, and Listen & co. into Perception. That was a fix. Not a terribly original one, but (what little) honor where honor is due. Pathfinder of course also tries to be original, and that's where the hilarity starts. Like, to stay on topic, introducing a Fly skill. Yes, that's exactly what D&D needs.

Makes sense to me. Notice that once you've done PF's skill conflation, it becomes quite logical to have one skill associated with each movement type.

(I might be biased because I use a Fly skill in L&L to streamline the entire system of flying rules into a simple skill check.)

QuoteCaesarSlaad mentioned Combat Maneuvers. These'd be my main beef. I can't rule out that these things got fixed in errata v. 1.03416, so please forgive if I judge the game on its release state.

Here I completely agree. CMB sounds great, but there are some fundamental design flaws. I also think the desire to maintain reverse compatibility eradicates the utility of the system by keeping all kinds of fiddly exceptions in the different maneuver types.

One of the best things I ever did in my 3.5 games was to roll tripping and grappling into a single system. I think the CMB system should have been (a) properly balanced and (c) rolled up pretty much all the combat maneuvers into a single, unified system.

But there's definitely a reason why I've never bothered updating my campaign to PF. There's just nothing there that justifies doing the conversion.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;489531Call of Cthulhu.

Back off poindexter, it isn't per se a bad game, but...


"you have been summoned to the mansion of Great Uncle Fester to learn his dark secret..."

That would mainly concern too many of the published scenarios then?

I'm a fan of Call of Cthulhu, but I actually would agree that it seems overrated at times, though perhaps not criminally so. I personally find combat pretty clunky and the resistance table a rather pointless contraption. While it's true that there's usually an easy way to deal with any perceived handicaps of the rules, some of the praise it gets seems exaggerated.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;489728This doesn't surprise me. Large chunks of Trollman's mathematical analysis is spherical cow (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2434/roleplaying-games/on-the-importance-of-spherical-cows) stuff. Paizo wasn't saying, "We don't think mathematical analysis is valuable." They were saying, "We've done mathematical analysis. We're interested in seeing what happens in actual play."

That's also how I understand the gist of the James Jacobs statements I referenced, statements which turn the feedback of some Denners round and say 'of course we want a low(er) probability for combat maneuvers to succeed'. It still leaves me scratching my head why that should have been a design goal in the first place, though.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;489728They might have been able to do this more diplomatically, but they were specifically trying to avoid the type of fatally-flawed "theory first" playtesting that plagued 4th Edition.

I was going to ask you to expand, but then realized that by 'theory first' you probably meant something akin to the linked reference to your spherical cow blogpost. (Correct me if this is wrong; and also, if it is wrong, kindly expand on what you meant by 'theory first'.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;489728But there's definitely a reason why I've never bothered updating my campaign to PF. There's just nothing there that justifies doing the conversion.

This is something very worthwhile to raise in the context of this discussion.

Even people on Frank's forum will now, in 2011, on occasion recommend Pathfinder over 3.5 to new people, both for ease of market accessibility (head over to Amazon, buy your own copy), and also because they feel you get more meat on the bones than if you simply went by the 3.5 PHB. The usual proviso is 'if your group is not very attentive to rules details in the first place' (which they grant few groups are and I'm inclined to agree).

However, the 2009 issue of whether extant 3.5 groups should convert or not is a separate discussion, and here I believe raising issues like CMB success odds is a lot more pertinent.

Actually, beyond all the details, the thing Pathfinder RPG lacks most, in my opinion, is the publication of a separate softcover volume which contains the player-relevant material only. I've often wondered whether people feel happy to carry around this heavy tome when they are not game mastering. If you play a caster PC, you'll need it for the spells alone.

Oh, I love that Spherical Cow essay! It scratches so many nagging itches I've been trying to reach.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;489777I'm a fan of Call of Cthulhu, but I actually would agree that it seems overrated at times, though perhaps not criminally so.

I think some historical context is probably required here. If CoC were published today, it would sink without a trace into the massive and overwhelming sea of games which look just like it.

This is because most of the industry has been massively influenced (either directly or indirectly) by CoC.

CoC is also one of the best-supported RPGs in the biz. (D&D, WoD, and Rifts are probably the only ones that give it any competition.) This is largely because it's endured for thirty years without any sort of major revision, a feat which it accomplishes because it largely does exactly what it says on the tin.

Any claim that CoC is widely overrated would just leave me completely befuddled.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;490017This is because most of the industry has been massively influenced (either directly or indirectly) by CoC.

Could you elaborate on that?  The RQ-derived games were never popular in my area at the time, so I'm not seeing it.

In My neck of the gamerverse I vote for Savage Worlds. Every game store save one had hordes of rabid fan folk jumping Me because I did not bow down to it upon hearing it spoke of. Now I don't hate savage worlds but come on people give the fanboi crap a rest they were worse than the D&D 4th edition fans.

In as much as something can be classified as overrated on the basis that "I don't understand why so many people like this so much", my one vote is for "Universalis".

I don't know what it is that I'm not getting, but upon reading the rules it looked like the most stark worst waste of time of any RPG I'd ever seen. Yet, it has a tremendous following.

Over-rated.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: daniel_ream;490019Could you elaborate on that?  The RQ-derived games were never popular in my area at the time, so I'm not seeing it.

The easiest demonstration is, of course, the Sanity mechanics. Whether you're looking at cyber rules in Cyberpunk 2020 or humanity in Vampire or avant garde mechanics from story games, mechanics derived from Sanity are everywhere in this industry today. CoC is the origin point for the entire development track that leads from ablative points to elaborate carrot-and-stick trait systems.

The even larger influence, though, is in scenario design and system focus.